First Days Home With Leah...

The boys are all very much in love with Leah.  I wish they could hold and touch her more, but we are trying to limit her chances of getting sick, so we haven't let them hold her too much.  The docs and nurses said to have them kiss and touch her feet so that is what they are doing.  Well, I should say that is what Evan and Colin are doing.  Logan, even though he is always asking where she is and loves her so much, is still a bit nervous around her and hasn't gotten too close.  Luckily though, for the 3rd time we have not dealt with any jealousy.  We have been so lucky that with each baby we bring home the older siblings seem to really love them.  In fact, Logan is now potty trained and going with out a pull up!!!  He just decided one day he was going to go in the big potty and ever since than he has been going all day at school and even when he is away from home.  Yesterday, he wore underwear all day at school for the first time (and didn't have an accident).  People always talk about their kids going backwards when a new baby comes home, but Logan seems to have stepped up to the "Big Boy" role.

Evan is especially embracing his big brother role.  He is always telling his teachers about her and drawing pictures of her and writing papers at school that say how much he loves his baby sister.  Even though he can be a rascal sometimes and drive us crazy, he really has such a sensitive heart and I am very proud of how much he loves his sister.

Colin has been sick the last two days.  He woke up Monday with a 103 temp!  I couldn't believe that my kids have been healthy for so long and then I bring home a preemie and he gets sick.  We tried our best to keep him away from her and he spent most of Tuesday in the basement watching TV, but I am crossing my fingers nobody else gets sick or passes it to her.  Today, he was much better and is back at school.

Other than that, we are just trying our best to balance her being home with doing stuff with the boys and getting things done around the house.  It is nice to be home now and able to do more around the house and help the boys with homework, but there is still not enough hours in the day to get everything done.  I have to feed every 3 hours and pump also, so I get about 1 hour between each feeding to either nap (which rarely happens), clean, take care of the boys, or do what ever else needs to be done.  This is around the clock so I have been running on only a few hours total of sleep each night.  Luckily, today at Leah's doctors appointment the pediatrician said I could let her sleep a little longer at night (up to 5 hours).  I am sure it will take a while for her to actually do that, since her body is now trained to get up every few hours, but that will at least give me a couple hours of sleep in a row.

Now that Dennis is back in the office I don't make him wake up with me at night.  His job is busy and stressful and he needs his energy to deal with that.  I also do better in the middle of the night than he does, so I would rather just handle the feedings myself.  He does give her her evening bottle so that he can bond with her and so I can get right to pumping and we can get to bed at a decent hour.  I will be so happy when we can get rid of the bottles and I no longer have to pump, it will add so many hours to my day!

Leah had her second pediatrician visit today, she is now 5lb 4oz!  She is already so much bigger than she was when she was first born.  Her discharge weight and weight at her appointment last Thursday was 4lb 14oz.  I know the day will come where we won't even remember her being as small as she was when she was born.

We are having so much fun with Leah though.  Saturday, we gave her her first bath.  She seemed to enjoy it as long as we kept her warm by pouring water on her.  She mostly just sleeps and then has some rare moments of just quietly looking at us.  She has had some fussy periods at night, which through trial and error I discovered is being caused by the multivitamin she has to be on.  We are going to experiment with different brands and see if we can find something she tolerates better.  I can't believe in just a few days she will already be a month old!!!

Sunday, Evan had his Christmas singing performance after church class, he was so cute.  Then when we got home we took pictures for this years Christmas card.  I didn't have high hopes of getting a good picture of 4 kids, but we decided to give it one try and we luckily got some good pictures...